


there will come a time to reclaim them

by waterpots



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: F/F, and mina used to write music, and they like move out of the city to live with it and learn to move past it, but jeongyeon is worried about it, momo sana jihyo and nayeon are mentioned, so i don't do it, tms au basically but like, umm the best way i can describe this is jeongyeon and mina have trauma together, vaguely and not really, writing emotions gives me hives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:40:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24362215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterpots/pseuds/waterpots
Summary: a small pressure washer hose, an old decrepit sort of house in the suburbs, and some worries.
Relationships: Myoui Mina/Yoo Jeongyeon
Comments: 7
Kudos: 69





	there will come a time to reclaim them

**Author's Note:**

> Komm und leg deine Probleme/Auf den Tisch hier, die dich quälen./Die Zeit wird einmal kommen,/Um sie vorzunehmen
> 
> I’ve been stuck with something probably a bit beyond writers block. Not sure. I’m trying to get back into the swing of things, but I can't promise anything consistent in updating any sort of writing in any sort of way. You might not know this from anything I’m willing to incline, but jeongmi is my favorite twice pairing. I think there’s something really neat about like…people who like each other. Idk. This whole fic was inspired by me...using a pressure washer today, because quarantine is so exciting.
> 
> Have you guys heard of Tokyo mirage sessions #fe encore? I’m just. Like. Asking for a friend. anyway this was kinda like, based on a longer au idea i had running around in my head for a while but never wanted to pen to paper but kinda just like. idk. decided to today. it's the vibes! so if things are weird that's why. there's like. backstory that is unsaid. wow. narrative devices.

July is hot, heat scorching down in waves from the sun, and gusts of wind are too few and far between to be considered anything other than divine intervention from an incompetent God, trying to help, ultimately useless. Jeongyeon stands in the backyard, in a t-shirt that’s too large from years ago and a pair of short, holding the hose in one hand with a pressure watcher nozzle attached to it.

The house had been Mina’s idea. Perfectly situated between both of their places of work, she had said. A joke, considering they’d been retired for a few years now—no, not retired. Too young to be retired. Just not working, because they didn’t have to be anymore. Just not working. It was a small house, one story, but with enough room for Mina to have an office for a desk and a desktop computer and Jeongyeon to have a workshop and a “workshop,” one where she could display her toys and the real one in the garage where she could build shelving for the other.

The walkway was old, covered in moss and with more packed dirt holding it in place than proper concrete. It was Jeongyeon’s project, for the summer, to clean off all the old stone pieces and see if they were worth keeping and, if not, replacing them, replastering the whole thing, and trying to figure out how to keep the moss from growing in the first place. It looped around, to a back deck of old, aged wood that severely needed to be replaced. That had been their original summer project, before the usual August heatwave came a month early, and they realized they didn’t have the luxury of squandering away June like they normally did—always nice to find out, after you’ve already squandered away June and all.

Mina is inside, and Jeongyeon can sometimes hear peals of laughter coming from inside the house, even over the pressure washer—usually Sana. They come over, her and Momo, at least once a month. Usually more. When they can find the time to drive out from the city. They’re still working—on…something. Not Jeongyeon’s place to know anymore, she realizes. She’s glad they at least find the time to visit. Mina doesn’t talk to many people here, outside of Jeongyeon. Not that Jeongyeon talks to many people outside Mina around here.

That had been the point of moving out here, to not be around people they knew. Jeongyeon had thought, at first, naively, foolishly, that might mean something like making new friends out here. But the point had been to get away, to control when they could see other people, other friends. Even a few years out, it was too soon to make new friends, it seemed.

Then again, the last thing Jeongyeon wanted was friends who ended up recognizing her, like they all inevitably did. That’s also why they’d moved out here, because people she met in the city, even those who had chalked the whole thing up to a collection of coincidences at first, usually realized who she was. And that brought up questions of Nayeon, and Jihyo, and the future of th—

Those weren’t Jeongyeon’s thoughts to have anymore. It didn’t matter. She wouldn’t think of it. The moss comes up in large patches pushed out of their home by the strong stream of water from the hose. But they don’t go anywhere. They find their way, loose and dead, into the uneven craters on the stone. Sticking obstinately around to confuse her process, maybe try and re-root, if they survive the onslaught. It’s possible, Jeongyeon realizes, that the pressure washer was digging the holes into perfectly good but soft stone. Maybe the chemical treatment would have worked better, and she was making this worse.

Jeongyeon twists a nozzle. The spray comes to a stop and she’s left standing, sweating, in a large puddle of water and mud and dirt and moss and 88 degree heat and no wind and no clouds, in a too loose t-shirt that’s several years old and some band she’s never heard of and possibly Jihyo’s, in a small town in the middle of nowhere a good two hours from the city, where she speaks to nobody except her—

“You killed the flowers,” Mina says, and Jeongyeon turns, to the woman poking her head out from the corner of the house, standing with one foot on the deck, the other, lightly placed on the walkway, trying not to get it too muddy from the runoff. Jeongyeon looks back at her mess.

“Ah.”

“We’ll have to go back to the nursery once you’re done.” Going to the nursery was a full day ordeal, because Mina looked at every flower and looked up information about them on her phone, to see if they’d be any good for their yard given its average moisture and their watering habits and sun exposure per day, and then colors—a solid three hours of colors, because they couldn’t just pick their favorite colors and be done with it, or the ones that were already the most in bloom (“they’ll die first,” Mina had told her when she’d insisted. “They don’t bloom more than once,” she reads from the Wikipedia page. A speculation: “they’ll be dead by the end of the month”). And Jeongyeon should hate it, because it’s a long day and she gets tired having to carry around all the small pots and planters. Would hate it, probably, if it had been anyone else. But it’s nice, because Mina does everything in her own way, and learns everything she can and knows it and tells Jeongyeon in a way that isn’t condescending, or rude, even when Jeongyeon asks dumb questions, like which they can plant that they don’t have to water, the kinds of questions Jihyo and Nayeon would spend the whole day laughing and playing off of. And it’s nice, to watch Mina care so much about it. And it’s important for both of them, Jeongyeon knows, to have things like this, to occupy their minds throughout the spring, and summer, and fall. And winter, too, with different things than these, because the snow means the plants don’t grow and the chill means they die if they manage to grow on years where it doesn’t snow so much.

“Do you need something?”

“Momo wants to see the TV stand in the basement.”

“Can’t you show her?”

“It’s more fun to hear you explain how you managed to make it look that way,” Mina says. Jeongyeon grins. “Plus, I have to show Sana something in my office.”

“Alright, tell her I’ll be down in a minute. Just have to wash my face first.” She throws the pressure hose haphazardly off the path, into the grass and away from the water, which has already mostly dried or run off.

“you’ll kill that grass,” Mina says when Jeongyeon steps up beside her onto the porch, up two small steps. She looks back at it, across the yard.

“I think it’ll be happy to be put out of its misery.” And Mina laughs.

“There’s lemonade on the table, if you want some.” Jeongyeon hums.

* * *

There are a small collection of cicadas that come out at twilight, and scream, very loudly, every night. Every year, even though Jeongyeon could have sworn she’d heard they only come out every five years to scream for sex or food or whatever it was. Maybe that had been some old wives’ tale—something Nayeon had thought was funny to lie about. Maybe there are different cicadas each year. Jeongyeon thinks it’d be a lot easier for them if they all came out on the same year. But then, maybe, the screaming would be so loud it’d deafen her, or something.

They sit outside, for a few hours, even though the large window-mounted AC is blasting away inside. Momo and Sana had left, always apologetically for having to go “so soon,” even though they’d been over for a plenty long while, and had reached the point where there was no gossip to catch them up on, no updates in Mina and Jeongyeon’s house to show off, and all they could do was boot up Mario Kart and watch Mina get competitive over it, and watch Momo get competitive over it just to humor her.

Jeongyeon wishes it were cooler during the day, because the deck is unsightly to look at, and she’s not sure if the last owners even stained the wood when they set it up. Brilliant, considering how rainy the spring was. It would be nice to tear it up, build a new one. Something to do. Something to stop thinking. She’s been trying to read, but it’s easier to stare at a page and space out and think than read. She’s been trying to watch television, and movies too, but it’s easier to pretend to watch and think than to actually watch.

“Momo wants to release a solo,” Mina says. “Something dance focused.”

“She’s too old,” Jeongyeon grunts. She’s trying to choke down some shitty IPA Mina had bought at the grocery store, because Jeongyeon had asked for beer, and Mina had asked what kind, and Jeongyeon, not thinking, had said “any,” and Mina had done her best.

“You’re 24,” Mina says.

“Archaic. Borderline senile.” Mina laughs. They settle into silence. The sun is mostly set by now. They can’t see it from their yard, because the people to the left of them politely decided to plant a wall of trees between the fence and their yard, and it obscures any view they’d have, excusing also things like telephone lines and houses—it’s definitely the fault of the trees they can’t see the sunset.

“About that,” Jeongyeon says, starts, and Mina looks over. Questioning, not rude, never rude, always patient. Like it’s okay for Jeongyeon to take her time. For her part, Jeongyeon can’t look anywhere but the can, in her hand, in her lap, sitting on the secondhand chairs they’d picked up in a yard sale when they first moved out. “You had to show Sana something in your office.” Mina nods, slowly. She’s already pieced together Jeongyeon’s question. At least the general theme of it, if not the actual absolute wording Jeongyeon would use to ask it. Which should make it easier to ask, you’d think, if they both knew. It doesn’t. “If you-” She cuts herself off, takes a sip of the IPA, manages to not grimace.

“What?”

“If you wanted, I mean, you know. To go back to it. You could.” Jeongyeon says.

“Did I need your permission?” Mina asks, tone genuine and teasing at the same time.

“I just mean I wouldn’t be mad,” Jeongyeon says. “I wouldn’t resent you or anything. If you were worried about that, you know? You were- what I mean is, you always were-”

“I lost that day, same as you,” Mina says. “We lost together.”

“I know.”

“It sounds like you’re just trying to get rid of me,” Mina says, fully teasing Jeongyeon.

“No! It’s just—I just-“ you’ve always been more capable than me. More talented. A broken friendship and a bad leg was what stopped me, and the only thing that stopped you, was me. “Have you tried it?” Jeongyeon asks instead. Have you ever even tried.

Mina lets out a long, slow sigh. “What do you mean?”

“Have you ever tried writing music again.”

Mina shakes her head. There’s a keyboard in the basement, a long 72 key ordeal, growing more and more dust by the minute. They can’t get rid of it. They can’t look at it. “Well, once.” Jeongyeon’s head shoots up. “When we were still in the city. Right after. I hooked everything up, sat down, and just.” Mina makes a gesture with her hands, something she can’t describe with words.

Nothing.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“For bringing it up, then.”

“It’s been said,” Mina says. “That we’re supposed to talk about these things more.” They both know by who. It remains, lingering in the air.

“I don’t like talking about it much.”

“Me either.” Then after a minute, Mina says, “Sana made me listen to one of her songs. Something she’d written. And tell her if I liked it or not.”

“I bet she tries to get you to write entire sections, huh?”

“She does,” Mina says with a grin. “I don’t. But I do listen, and tell her if I liked it. I _do_ still listen to music.”

“So do I,” Jeongyeon says.

“I know. I can hear you singing to yourself while you’re building. You’re still good at it.” Jeongyeon looks up, squints at the dark blue sky, that sort of shade it gets when it’s not night yet, still blue, but so dark it’s not anymore. She looks for the first start she can find. The first one that’s faint, so much so that it could just be a trick of the eyes, showing you what you want to see. “Have you ever thought about trying again?”

“My leg’s no good,” Jeongyeon says. “I couldn’t if I wanted to. Can’t dance.”

“Jihyo sings for dramas now, when she’s not busy running the company,” Mina says. “and Nayeon’s dominating the underground indie scene, of all things, from what Sana’s told me.”

“I know.”

“That’s not really dancing music.”

“That’s not it.”

“I know.” Jeongyeon finds a star, small and with a slightly yellowish tint. “I’m sorry for bringing it up.”

“What day is it today?”

“July 12.”

“Fuck!” Jeongyeon jumps up.

“What?”

“That’s Saturn,” she points up at the yellowish star, or at least to the best of her ability. When you point up at the stars it’s kind of a wash that anybody will be able to follow your finger properly. “We were supposed to bring the telescope out.”

“We should get it,” Mina stands up as well.

“Right.” Jeongyeon hurries through the back door, nearly trips over the small two-inch difference between the house and the yard. She’s pelted by the blast of cold air as she enters, a line of goosebumps raising up on her forearm. A weird moment where she is simultaneously too cold and too hot all at once.

The telescope is big, and fancy, and a larger chunk of Jeongyeon’s severance-retirement-pension extravaganza payment Nayeon had put together, even though they weren’t—aren’t—on speaking terms, than Jeongyeon would like to admit. But she’s thrilled about it, because her and Mina had set it up with an old phone so they could move the telescope with it. It’s a level of fancy and technologically advanced she couldn’t dream of actually doing on her own.

They have to bring it out in two pieces, because if it’s just one piece Jeongyeon will fret about it too much, so they detach the actual telescope from its tripod, and Mina carries that and Jeongyeon carries the telescope and they set it back up outside, and Jeongyeon rough tunes the position by hands and then fine tunes it with the phone.

“We won’t be able to see the rings very well,” Jeongyeon says, stepping back from the eyepiece. “They were facing us a few years ago. In 2017. Now they’re level with us.”

“Wish we’d known back then.”

“You wouldn’t really be able to see it in the city.”

“We could have made a trip out somewhere.” Mina looks through the eyepiece, gasps softly.

“Still pretty cool, right?”

“Yeah.” She moves away. “Jeongyeon?”

“Yeah?” Jeongyeon looks through the eyepiece again.

“Do you regret this?”

“Why would you ask that?”

“Your questions,” Mina says. Shrugs, hugs herself. Even though it isn’t cold.

“I’m worried.” She stands up straight, looks Mina in the eyes properly. Hard to do, that they both know. “That you’re just here to humor me. That you’re wasting your life and not doing what you want to do.” _Here. With me._ Unspoken.

“I’m worried about that too, you know,” Mina says. “I mean, I’m the reason you and your friends don’t-”

“You’re not,” Jeongyeon says.

“I know you don’t want to say I am.”

“They liked you.”

“For a while.”

“That wasn’t your fault.” Jeongyeon sighs. “I don’t want to be the reason you don’t do the things you love."

“I love you,” Mina says. And smiles at Jeongyeon, and makes her breath catch in her throat. Because she can, of course she can, because Mina is beautiful and brilliant and can just say things like that. Things that make Jeongyeon’s chest fill up, that make her stop worrying about leaving things the way they did, where they did. “So don’t worry.”

Jeongyeon smiles, and laughs, and slings and arm over Mina’s shoulders. “I guess we could say you are doing the things you love,” she says, a joke, and Mina laughs, and touches Jeongyeon’s cheek, moves her so she’s facing Mina properly, kisses her. Jeongyeon smiles into the kiss. And forgets. Forgets times other than these. Times when things were different. Before it was just Jeongyeon, and Mina, and a one-story house in the suburbs, with mossy pathways and an old washed out deck.

**Author's Note:**

> Anyway, if you have a switch and you like silly games I got what the golf recently and it’s actually really fun. I’d share clips of it, but this is archive of our own. That’s my recommendation. Also children of morta but I think that one’s been out for a bit. Yeah.
> 
> I’m not on twitter @snowsets. Like. I’m not online, but I used to be. Took a break from online a few days ago that was supposed to just be like mental health/productivity but actually might be mid tier serious not-so-serious health related stuff. Not sure yet. Anyhow. When I’m back to being online I’ll be there, so you can follow me there, if you’re so inclined. I’ll answer dms too, if you’re so inclined and want to chat, although I’ve mostly just been reading Ulysses and sacred stones fanfiction, so I can’t say I’m a good conversationalist. I’m also on discord. Uhhh but I guess you’d have to dm me or ask to get that username. Just because. Idk. Anyway.


End file.
